#web rococo

[robertogreco]

These rococo days of the web have been sadly lost to capricious corporate owners, and newer platforms almost seem to have recoiled from them. (I could write a whole other letter about the neutered minimalism common on a lot of platforms today, but I digress.) But I think that history is telling: in that, given a canvas on which to play, many people opted to express themselves with color and image, often spending much more effort there then on the words, and often in surprising ways.

Mandy Brown, “Hypertext for All” (I’ve previously quoted that wonderful essay.)

[robertogreco]

Web Rococo

I‘ve been using the phrase web rococo to describe an aesthetic that harks back to earlier days on the web and in social media. It’s that same aesthetic that Brian Feldman describes (without calling it web rococo) as “best typified by Geocities and later by Myspace, prized owner customization over audience usability.” This link points to my growing collection of web bookmarks tagged “web rococo”. See also my nascent collection of Tumblr posts with the same tag.